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Saturday, March 21, 2015

Bhopal: Members of a Hindu religious group allegedly vandalised a church in Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh late on Friday night where a Bible convention was being held. There were around 200 tribals present at the time of the incident; they had come to the church for the convention from Mandla District.

According to church authorities, the men had a heated argument after which they created ruckus in the premises and broke flower pots.

But the the attackers claim there was no vandalism. "We went to the church after we got to know that a religious conversion ceremony is been organised there in the name of Bible convention. Otherwise, why were so many tribals called there?" said Yogesh, a member of the Hindu Dharma Sena.

A police case was registered against unknown people on Saturday after a complaint by church authorities. The Christians have threatened to close all missionary schools and colleges in Jabalpur on Monday if police does not take any action.

"If the perpetrators of this crime are not punished, we will close all the Christian schools in the area," said Denzel Paul, a leader of the Christian community.

"We have registered a case against unknown people after a complaint by Christian community," said Isha Pant, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Jabalpur.

While the Christians deny the allegations made by Hindu Dharma Sena, a few tribals claim they had come to the church to convert. "We came here to convert to Christianity," said Satish, a tribal from Sirhora village who attended the convention.

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

RANAGHAT
(West Bengal): Bringing more shame for Bengal, a 71-year-old nun of a
convent school was gang-raped in Ranaghat town, some 80km from Kolkata,
early on Saturday. She was injured so badly that she had to undergo a
surgery.

Police blamed a gang of robbers and ruled out any
motive behind the rape, which triggered protests and angry reactions
from Christian leaders in the state that worships Mother Teresa as a
saint. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee condemned it and ordered a CID
probe and her minister Firhad Hakim called it an "attack on humanity".

"I am shocked. Such an attack on an elderly sister is a rare incident,
first time in Bengal and possibly the first time in India. It is deeply
distressing," said archbishop of Kolkata Thomas D'Souza, who rushed to
Ranaghat and visited the school. "The chief minister was genuinely
concerned. She promised speedy action and assured security."

Hakim blamed growing intolerance and religious fanaticism in West
Bengal. "Religious intolerance in the name of Ghar Wapsi is at work,
sometimes in Odisha and sometimes in Bengal. This may be one of the
reasons. Such heinous criminals should be shot dead but our law does not
permit this. The Bengal government believes the criminals should be
hanged to death," he said.

Mamata chose her words carefully:
"We strongly condemn the incident that took place at the Ranaghat
convent. We have ordered a CID probe that will examine all aspects of
this horrific crime. The government will take swift, strongest possible
action against the culprits." The state government has announced Rs 1
lakh reward for the capture of the rapists, said SP Arnab Ghosh.

Christian missionaries have a significant presence in Ranaghat and neighbouring areas, particularly in education.

According to the complaint lodged by the school, seven to eight armed
robbers overpowered the security guard and stormed its compound around
2.30am. The guard was tied up. Holding a pistol to his head, the gang
forced its way into the main building. An investigator said that the
gang tried to destroy a CCTV camera near the gate but failed. The
staff-room CCTV has captured the faces of four robbers.

"The
gang then moved to the first floor where the nuns have their residential
quarters. A senior sister resisted them when they tried to loot
valuables and cash. She was sexually assaulted," a source said. "Two
other nuns cowered in fear in nearby rooms while the violence went on
for more than an hour. It was nearly dawn by the time they left. The
screams of the nuns alerted locals and they helped move the injured nun
to hospital.'' School principal Sister P Mary Shanti confirmed this. The
gang looted Rs 12 lakh in cash, say agency reports.

Questions
are being raised over the role of police. Sources said the missionary
school had sought protection from Gangnapur police station nearly a
fortnight ago but the officers did nothing. In fact, there is a police
outpost just 100 metres from the school that is supposed to carry out
regular patrols. The robbers carried out the rape and rampage inside the
school for over an hour but no policeman bothered to check, school
authorities said.

News of the rape triggered demonstrations by
parents of children of the convent and residents of Ranaghat. Trains
were blocked on the Sealdah-Ranaghat section and traffic on NH34 was
badly affected. Senior administrative and police officers had to
intervene to prevent the protests from snowballing into a crisis. Nadia
district magistrate P B Salim said the nun was recovering and there was
no immediate need to move her to Kolkata. "It was a heinous act and we
have initiated an investigation," he said.

Monday, March 16, 2015

A weekend attack on a church in northern India may have been carried out by ‘outside’ elements, according to police.

The Believers Church in Kaimari village in the Hisar district of
Haryana state was vandalized on Sunday and its cross left broken. In
addition, a statue of the Hindu God Hanuman was placed inside the church
and a flag featuring a Hindu symbol was hung outside the building.

“Some antisocial elements from outside might have been involved in
the incident,” investigating officer Ramesh Chand told ucanews.com. “The
situation is peaceful [now]. There has never been a Christian-Hindu
dispute in the area.”

The pastor of the church, Subhash Chand, lodged a complaint against
14 people in the village after the incident. He could not be reached for
comment.

Ramesh Chand said that no arrests had been made yet, but assured that
“investigations are going on and the culprits will be brought to book”.

According to Kaimari village head Satya Narain, the pastor had moved
to the area more than a year ago and purchased two plots on which to
build a house.

“Nobody had any objection to him staying there but he was
categorically told not to preach the religion there, as there is no
Christian family in the village,” Narain told ucanews.com.

Narain said that about a month prior to the incident, it came to
light that the pastor had attempted to convert some local villagers.

“We confronted the pastor who promised to remove the cross from the building and not preach the religion in the area,” he said.

Narain stressed that local villagers were “not involved in the
attack…. We have no problem with the pastor living with us in the
village. We want peace in the area.”

“Some people from outside might have taken advantage of the
situation,” he said, adding that recently representatives from the
pro-Hindu group Bajrang Dal had inquired about Christian activities in
the village and if a church was being built in the area.

Sunday’s incident in Kaimari comes amid increased attacks against
Christians and their religious institutions across the predominantly
Hindu country.

On Friday, an elderly nun was gang-raped and a convent ransacked in eastern West Bengal state.

Last week, a Christian burial service was thwarted in the Faridabad
district of Haryana state and the people who attended the service were
beaten up by Hindu nationalists.

Late last month, police arrested 20 people for distributing Christian
literature in northern Rajasthan state, while in the south Indian state
of Karnataka a group of unidentified suspects threw stones at a prayer
hall of the Mangalore diocese, smashing the protective glass pane of a
Marian statue.

“The Hisar church attack is not an isolated incident. There is a
clear pattern,” Vijyesh Lal, secretary of the United Christian Forum,
told ucanews.com.

Responding to the allegations of the villagers that the pastor was
trying to convert some people in the village, Lal said that conversion
is illegal in India only if it is done by force or fraudulent means.

“Why was the pastor not allowed to run a church in the village? This is totally unconstitutional,” he said.

Lal said the conversion allegations were an attempt by the accused
villagers to counter the complaint made against them for allegedly
damaging the church.

“These all are attempts to polarize the society on communal lines and create social unrest,” he added.

“Any form of violence in the name of religion needs to be stopped
immediately through a collective and strong political will by the
governments, both at central and state levels,” the archbishop said in a
statement.

He called for immediate action by the local police and civil
authorities to stop hate campaigns against the Christian community.

Kolkata: Christians in India said on Monday that the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not done enough to protect their religion, after a spate of attacks including the rape of a 72-year-old nun in Bengal over the weekend.

Christians prayed and held vigils across the country to protest against the rape during an armed assault on a Bengal convent school, the worst in a series of incidents that followers of the faith say are making them feel unwelcome in their own country.

The motive for the assault and armed robbery in West Bengal on Saturday was not clear. Police said they have detained 10 people who broke into the Convent of Jesus and Mary School in Nadia district, northeast of Kolkata. The man suspected of rape has not been caught.

The rape victim who is still in hospital has appealed for peace. " The nun has said she has forgotten the incident, has forgiven the crime and has asked all to pray for the culprits," said Sister Amala, who visited the assaulted nun this morning.

A few days ago, a Catholic church being built in Haryana was vandalized; its cross was removed and a small statue of the Hindu god Hanuman was placed in the church.

Father Savari Muthu, spokesman for the Delhi Catholic Archdiocese and a national Church organiser, said, "We have to raise our voice against the atrocities. Christians will not tolerate this humiliation."

Father Muthu said schools across the country were holding prayer meetings on Monday. Christians held a silent protest in the streets of Mumbai on Sunday.

Weeks ago, Mohan Bhagwat, the leader of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), suggested that the charitable work of Mother Teresa had been aimed at religious conversion.

Critics say the remarks by the chief of the RSS, the ideological mentor of the ruling BJP, contributed to a climate where Christians are seen as outsiders, despite a more than 1,500-year presence in India.

"I am not Indian any more, at least in the eyes of the proponents of the Hindu Rashtra," prominent retired police chief Julio Ribeiro wrote in a column for the Indian Express paper.

The RSS has condemned the rape of the elderly nun.

"No attack should be tolerated on any woman in India. Be it a Hindu, a Muslim or a Christian," Suresh Joshi, RSS general secretary, told reporters on Sunday.

Opposition lawmakers in the Rajya Sabha or Upper House of parliament on Monday said the attack could damage the secular fabric of the country, where about a fifth of the population belongs to faiths other than Hinduism.

Since December, half a dozen churches have been vandalized.

In February, shortly after U.S. President Barack Obama called for respect for religious freedom in India, PM Modi broke a long silence on the subject and, speaking at a church event, vowed a crackdown on religious violence.

Prayers were said at churches across India
on Sunday for an elderly nun who was raped at a convent in an attack
that has intensified anger over sexual violence and fuelled fears among
beleaguered Christians.

The assault on the 71-year-old is the latest in a high-profile string
of rapes in India and follows a spate of attacks on churches that
prompted the Hindu nationalist prime minister, Narendra Modi, to promise
a crackdown on religious violence.

The nun was attacked late on Friday after a gang of half a dozen
robbers broke into a convent school in eastern West Bengal state and
ransacked the premises, police said.

The robbers gagged a security guard before assaulting the nun. They
then entered the principal’s room and stole cash, a laptop and a mobile
phone, according to police.

Four of the six attackers have allegedly been identified through CCTV
footage and a reward of 100,000 rupees (around £1,075) is on offer for
any leads on the suspects. Five others have been detained for
questioning.

Arnab Ghosh, a police superintendent who visited the convent near the
town of Ranaghat, said the robbery appeared to have been carefully
planned.

“CCTV footage showed that six men, aged between 20 and 30, scaled the
boundary wall around 11.40pm, entered the school and disconnected the
telephone lines,” he told Agence France-Presse.

“At least two of them were armed and the rest were carrying burglary
tools. In the chapel, a holy scripture was found torn and … a bust of
Jesus was broken,” Ghosh said.

Prayers were held on Sunday in churches in West Bengal for the nun,
who is recovering at a hospital in Ranaghat, some 45 miles from the
state capital, Kolkata.

“In our Sunday mass, we prayed for the sister to recover quickly from
trauma, fear and her physical injuries. We will pray for her again this
evening,” Thomas D’Souza, the archbishop of Kolkata, told AFP.

“They not only committed a heinous crime, but they also vandalised
the chapel …This is the first time such an attack has happened in
India.”

Christian leaders in Kolkata said they were planning to hold a
candlelight vigil on Monday followed by a solidarity rally in support of
the victim.

“We are shocked that a thing like this has happened in our state. We
want the culprits to be arrested and brought to justice swiftly,” Father
Saroj Biswas told the NDTV news network.

The attack was condemned during morning services in the western state
of Goa, which has a sizeable Christian population, and there were also
prayers for the nun in the capital, New Delhi.

The rape has added to the sense of fear and dismay among members of
the country’s Christian minority, who have been deeply upset by recent
attacks on churches.

Modi had been heavily criticised for not speaking out earlier against
religious violence and has also faced flak for remaining silent about a
spate of mass “re-conversions” of Christians and Muslims to Hinduism.

“Even if you call it an isolated incident, the background and the
atmosphere for such an attack had already been there, so you cannot
simply ignore it as a one-off incident,” Father Savarimuthu Sankar, a
spokesman for the Delhi diocese, told AFP.

The incident also adds to a grim record of horrifying sexual assaults
in India, which last week banned a documentary about a December 2012
gang-rape that sparked domestic and international outrage.

Authorities said screening the documentary could have caused public
disorder, but critics accused the government of being more concerned
with the country’s reputation than the safety of its women.

The gang-rape of a young physiotherapy student highlighted the
frightening level of violence against women in the world’s second
most-populous country and triggered mass protests.

It led to a major reform of India’s rape laws, speeding up trials and
increasing penalties, although many campaigners say little has changed
for women.

The under-construction church in Hisar, Haryana which was attacked on Sunday. (ANI Photo)

Tension gripped a village in Haryana's Hisar district on Monday following an attack on an under-construction church. Police said 14 people were booked for rioting, damaging a place of
worship, theft and promoting enmity following a complaint from the
church priest in Kaimri village in Hisar district, 260km from
Chandigarh. However, no arrests have been made so far.At a time when the security of Christians has led to a raging debate
and incidents of church attacks in Delhi have hogged headlines,
miscreants on Sunday vandalised the church and replaced the cross with
an idol of Hanuman.Some media reports said villagers alleged the priest was trying to
construct the church despite the fact that there was no Christian in the
entire village. Reports also said villagers were angry over the
priest's alleged efforts to convert some of the residents. There are allegations that the priest had bought the piece of land
for building a house but started constructing a church instead."I was threatened by Bajrang Dal activists and other locals last month," Father Subhash Chand said.Chand, priest of the Williwarsh Church in the village, alleged that
the accused threatened him with dire consequences if he proceeded with
the construction. He said the accused fragmented the cross and installed the statue of
Hanuman and a flag depicting Lord Ram. Chand also alleged that the
miscreants stole a cooler and some items. Christian Front, Haryana, condemned the incident and has demanded
immediate arrest of the accused, all believed to be residents of Kaimri.The Haryana attack came against the backdrop of Prime Minister's
Narendra Modi's assurance of ensuring religious freedom, in the wake of
attacks on churches in the national capital.Commenting on the Kaimri incident, Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP's)
Nalin Kohli said, "Any religious place of worship cannot be treated as
an object that people can use to take out their frustration."

Tuesday, March 03, 2015

Members of the Hindu Jagaran Manch (HJM) allegedly attacked the farm
of a Christian man in Alirajpur district on Sunday and accused him of
converting Hindus to Christianity.

The activists disrupted a prayer meeting being held at the farm and
abused and heckled the Christian man, identified only as Emmanuel. No
one was injured in the incident.

The farm is located at Jobat, around two kilometres from Alirajpur city. Alirajpur is around 180 km west of Indore.

According to residents of Jobat, a large number of tribal people
gather at Emmanuel’s home every Sunday for a prayer meeting and for
getting massage oil for joint pains. Most of those who come to
Emmanuel's house are Hindu tribal people.

The HJM activists alleged that Emmanuel was converting Hindus in the
name of serving the poor. The activists filed an application at Jobat
police station, demanding an inquiry.

Akhilesh Jha, the superintendent of police of Alirajpur, said he was
aware of the incident and that the matter was being investigated.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently broke his silence on the
growing intolerance of Hindu groups linked to the Sangh Parivar, saying
his government would uphold freedom of faith and crack down on elements
who incite sectarian tensions.

The incident in Alirajpur occurred even as Christian clerics
announced in Bhopal that the community will hold special prayers for
three days from March 4 at 100 places across the country for an end to
"attacks" on churches and the "hate campaign" against the minority.

"We are going to pray in churches for three days from March 4 to 6,"
said FJ Valsalen, pastor of Jabalpur-based English Methodist Church. In
Madhya Pradesh, the prayers will be held at Indore, Jabalpur, Ujjain,
Damoh, Gwalior and Bhopal.

"We are passing through a turbulent time...Our churches are being
attacked and false cases are being slapped on our ministers and a smear
campaign to defame us is being run. Forcible campaign ‘ghar wapsi’
(conversion to Hinduism by right wing groups) is underway to torment
us," a cleric alleged.

The Rashtriya Isai Mahasabha (RIM) also handed over a memorandum to
external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and demanded an end to attacks
on Christians.

Monday, March 02, 2015

A group of Hindu Jagran Manch (HJM) activists raised slogans outside a prayer hall near Jobat in Madhya Pradesh’s Alirajpur district Sunday accusing Christians of converting the local tribal people by “inducement”.

Around 300 people were present in the prayer hall on Jhabua Road when the HJM activists arrived at 10 am, nearly an hour after the Sunday prayer began. Church of North India pastor Emmanuel Ariel told The Indian Express that the activists raised anti-Christian slogans and also hurled insults during their protest till the police arrived.

HJM activist Pratap Singh Dawar alleged that it was common for the converted Christians to woo tribals by offering them money or promising “miracle cures” for their ailments. He said Christians provoke tribals against Hindus.

After the prayer meeting was over, the HJM submitted a complaint along with affidavits by three persons who alleged that attempts were made to convert them to Christianity by offering inducement. Sub-divisional police officer Anand Singh Waskale said FIR, if any, would be lodged only after the complaint was probed.

Dawar alleged that as part of their “miracle cures”, young Christian men “apply oil on unwell teenaged female tribals”. “This can’t be allowed to go on,’’ he said and added that the administration had been warned to intervene or else they will be held responsible if something goes wrong.

Ariel said the Christians did not lodge any complaint because the prayer continued after the HJM activists left.

In October last year, the district administration had denied permission to All-India United Christian Front and Moksha Foundation to hold a convention at the same venue where Sunday’s prayer meeting was held. The permission was denied in the wake of communal tension after a Christian boy and a Hindu girl eloped and married at an Arya Samaj temple in Bhopal.